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U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has named 45 Mississippi counties primary natural disaster areas because of freezing, flooding, flash flooding and excessive rain.

Producers who had losses from those causes since Jan. 15 may be eligible for Farm Service Agency emergency loans.

Farmers and ranchers in adjacent counties can also apply. There are 33 such counties in Mississippi, eight in Alabama, four in Arkansas, eight in Louisiana and five in Tennessee.

Emergency loans can be used for replacing equipment or livestock, reorganizing a farming operation, refinancing certain debts, and other recovery needs.

The application deadline is April 7, 2020.

The agency has a number of other emergency programs that don’t require a disaster declaration.

The Mississippi counties named primary disaster areas are Adams, Alcorn, Benton, Calhoun, Carroll, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Claiborne, Clay, Covington, Forrest, Grenada, Harrison, Holmes, Humphreys, Issaquena, Itawamba, Jefferson, Lamar, Lee, Leflore, Lowndes, Marion, Marshall, Monroe, Montgomery, Oktibbeha, Pearl River, Perry, Pontotoc, Sharkey, Stone, Tippah, Tishominogo, Tunica, Union, Walthall, Warren, Washington, Wayne, Webster, Wilkinson, Winston, Yalobusha, and Yazoo.

The contiguous Mississippi counties are Amite, Attala, Bolivar, Clarke, Coahoma, Copiah, DeSoto, Franklin, George, Greene, Hancock, Hinds, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson Davis, Jones, Kemper, Lafayette, Lawrence, Leake, Lincoln, Madison, Neshoba, Noxubee, Panola, Pike, Prentiss, Quitman, Simpson, Smith, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, and Tate.

Contiguous counties in other Southeast states are:

Alabama: Choctaw, Colbert, Franklin, Lamar, Lauderdale, Marion, Pickens, and Washington;

Tennessee: Fayette, Hardeman, Hardin, McNairy, and Shelby.

Topics Agribusiness Mississippi